Zane moved away from the bathroom door, slow and cautious enough to manage the agonizing ache in his sore ribs.
Reaching the hospital bed, he sat heavily on the mattress, facing the window where the faint, silver glow of moonlight filtered into the room.
He attempted to tilt and crack his neck, but a sharp, biting pain immediately flared up, a brutal reminder that his body was yet to heal.
Pushing it now would only invite more damage.
Inside, he seethed.
Yet, his anger was morphing into something pointless—but heavy with consequence.
A soldier was meant to protect, not cower.
But right now, even courage felt dangerous.
His body weakened further, demanding that he lie down and give in to rest.
Instead, Zane forced himself to sit up straight, stubbornly refusing to yield to exhaustion.
This weakness was just more proof of how dangerous Azael truly was, proof that Zane was outmatched.
Lowering his head, he let his thoughts drift to what really troubled him—his chances with Elana.
If she were actually given a choice, would she choose him? without fear of Azael.
Eira had been right about his hypocrisy.
His claim that Elana's agency was the only thing that mattered to him.
Swallowing hard, Zane raised his head to face the vast, uncaring night sky.
The bitter truth was that he wasn't above his instincts as a man.
The conclusion was undeniable: if he possessed the same power as Azael did, he would do the same thing.
He would keep and protect Elana.
His shoulders dropped.
But the cost was not as a man, but as one of the very monsters she feared.
**
Elana's hand finally tightened around the skein of yarn Cara had brought to her earlier that day.
A small, genuine smile spread across her face as she gently straightened from the cupboard beside her bed.
Inhaling softly, her fingers grazed the smooth, wooden, needles tucked beneath the yarn.
Cara had actually taken her request seriously.
Even if Elana had intentionally downplayed the urgency so she wouldn't be much trouble for Cara amidst all that was going on.
Her robe slipped further from her shoulders and her skin rose with goosebumps from the gentle wind that blew through the room.
A quiet reminder that she needed to replace the robe with proper nightwear and crawl under the warmth of the blanket.
She pressed the yarn to her chest and her shoulders tensed slightly as the slow, cool spread of goosebumps reached her nipples.
The wind.
It felt like him.
Like Azael.
She had been withholding questions from Cara. Trying too hard not to ask if her friend had ever experienced anything like what she shared with Azael.
She wanted to confess—to admit how much she actually liked it.
How much she missed it.
Her robe shifted across her stomach.
Before she could react to the change in the air, the cold, unmistakable graze of Azael's nose brushed against the sensitive skin of her neck.
A soft sound escaped her lips.
She didn't resist.
Instead, she tilted her head, exposing her neck further to allow him as his arms circled her from behind, pulling her back into him.
His scent of wisteria came clearer now, no longer overpowered by lavender as his cold breath brushed her neck, and she leaned back into the hard planes of his chest, her grip on the yarn weakening.
Elana bit her lip as his breath trailed along her neck and his hands settled at her waist, pulling her firmly against his frame.
A sharp shiver ran through her, her body jolting briefly at the hard press of his groin against her.
She felt the cool press of his lips against her chin.
"Your thoughts," Azael's voice came in a husky, low whisper, his breath grazing her lips, "are clearly ahead of mine."
Elana turned her face away and shook lightly.
She refused to let him think he had won over her mind and her freedom of choice, even if she was devastatingly certain he had already won over her body.
"I don't have a choice," she replied with a tight voice as she pressed her arms flat against the soft flesh of her chest.
Her mind desperately clawed for some form of physical resistance, her memory suddenly echoing with Eira's cutting words about how Azael had kept calling her a slave.
Elana frowned and tried to straighten and wrench herself from his grip.
A frustrated moan escaped her when he didn't budge.
"Except you're the one pressing yourself constantly onto this so-called slave," she shot.
"I didn't imagine you would have the patience for a craft," he murmured, ignoring her strike as he trailed his hands upward, slipping them beneath her stiff arms to cup the full mounds of her breasts through the robe.
Elana let out a stifled moan. Her arms went slack, and she leaned back into him once more, allowing his hands to knead her curves through the fabric.
Her fingers dug softly into the yarn trapped between her palms.
"Knowledge about who I am besides your slave is of no importance, isn't it?" she said, flushing at how lustful her own voice sounded.
"That title offends you too much," he replied, his tone growing hoarse. "One would think you would be immune to it by now."
Anger flared through Elana's haze of arousal and she wriggled forward, almost breaking free, but a sudden movement caused the yarn to slip from her fingers, followed by a sharp drop to the bed.
Before her hips could hit it, she landed directly on his thighs, where he now sat at the edge.
Azael's hands didn't miss a beat, immediately resuming their slow, possessive kneading of her breasts through the robe.
Her struggling slowed instantly and her hands came down to softly grip the tops of his solid thighs, her body aching for his touch to slip beneath her robe.
"Do I…Do I have to be property and slave too?" she asked, unable to mask the heavy, aching vulnerability in her tone.
The robe slipped further down her arms, and the sensitive tips of her breasts tightened painfully.
"What would you rather be?" he asked, his lips brushing the shell of her ear.
Elana didn't hesitate. "I'd rather be loved…"
She bit her lip the moment the words left her mouth, almost regretting her honesty.
"How does it feel to be loved?" he asked again and she tensed.
This time, he stopped too.
Azael retracted his hands and allowed her to straighten, though she sat still on his thighs, fully aware of the throbbing bulge beneath her.
Elana clutched the ends of her robe together, though she made no move to pull it back up her arms.
She didn't want to cover herself—only for him to keep touching her.
"I assume you haven't seen enough of it to assume," he said quietly. "Then you must surely have experienced it in some way to be so aware."
Elana's toes curled slightly.
A small, tentative spark of excitement flared under her shyness before she spoke.
"My teacher…when I was little," she began, her voice soft. "Miss Rona was her name. She taught me that love was selfless…kind, and considerate. She let me choose, and she never held my choices against me, or regarded me as a slave."
"Children are mostly treated with care to ease their existence in this world earlier," he countered coldly. "In the end, your teacher is just another slave to her profession. Part of which was lying to you, indirectly achieving the aim of your owners to keep you contained—especially with such a misleading ideology as love."
Elana froze. The fragile warmth inside her died instantly, replaced by a cold shock.
"That's…that's not true," she managed.
A low scoff escaped him as she felt his cold fingers tilt her chin up.
"The same love both offspring of your enslavers showed you?" he asked, his freezing breath washing over her face.
Elana's heart cracked.
Immediately the memory of Naina flashed through her mind.
"Israel wasn't like that," she said quickly. "Naina was only irritated because the war had been exhausting."
"So certain," he continued, his breath drawing closer to her lips.
Her mouth parted instinctively, waiting, aching to receive his kiss as his other arm slipped around her waist again, pulling her back against him.
**
"You forget," Azael said, feeling the fabric of the robe sag beneath his hold as Elana's body went pliant.
"You forget Israel is a child," he continued. "Just as you once were."
She frowned slightly, but before she could argue, his lips met hers.
Elana reacted instantly, surrendering to the contact.
He received her, his lids fluttering half-closed as he let her take the lead, enjoying the warm, desperate urgency of her mouth while his arm tightened around her.
He knew the truth.
The only freedom he was ever willing to let her explore was the boundary of his own body.
Never outside his watch.
Never anywhere beyond his awareness.
She broke the kiss, her rapid breaths warming his moist lips.
"But still," she panted. "Even grown people treat other grown people the same way…with love."
"Is that what you expect?" he asked.
Gently, he lowered her back onto the bed.
Her head came to rest against his arm, and his eyes immediately dropped to where her robe had bunched beneath her thighs.
Her legs left entirely bare up to her propped-up knees, draped over his lap.
"Isn't that…?" She hesitated and his attention returned to her face; she was staring back at him, a fragile flicker of hope shining in her eyes. "Isn't that what you feel?"
Azael paused. Love was a concept far too foreign, far too out of place to exist in his world.
His free hand slowly traced the side of her bare thigh, and her entire body trembled at the touch.
"As I said earlier," he replied, his voice devoid of softness. "A man's needs are not always determined by what he feels."
She whimpered.
The raw pain in her eyes reached out to him before she quickly turned her face away.
Why couldn't she just accept his ownership?
Why couldn't she accept that yielding would make her life easier?
His hand slipped lower, trailing under her thighs until his fingers grazed the sensitive flesh of her inner thigh.
His patience was thinning rapidly.
He watched her breaths hitch and quicken, even as her hands stubbornly clutched at the edges of her robe across her chest.
Lowering his head to her shoulder, he savored her fragrance while his gaze locked on the almost bare swells of her chest.
"I learnt to knit in Sirence," she choked out, trying to anchor herself. "Zelda taught me."
His eyes dragged over her body, the temptation beneath her robe stirring further the hunger coiling low in his groin.
"I see you hated it so much to want to escape," he replied smoothly, his fingers tracing a slow line down the path of one inner thigh.
Elana shifted restlessly beneath him. "If I had chosen to go there myself, maybe I wouldn't have been pushed to escape," she snapped, a flash of defiance breaking through.
Azael's gaze flicked to her face.
In a swift, unyielding motion, he broke her grip on the robe, pinning her left wrist with his hand resting beneath her head.
She wriggled against his weight, fruitlessly trying to wrestle free while clutching the fabric with her other hand.
"Now you admit to being persuaded," he said.
Her eyes fluttered unsteadily, wide with fear.
"N-No…" she began.
But her words were cut short by a sharp gasp as his grazing fingers moved with zero hesitation, sliding directly over her already slippery, aching heat.
The hand clutching her robe finally let go, flying up to grip his forearm in a desperate hold.
"If you don't tell me who it is," Azael said, his voice dropping into a low, dangerous undertone, unable to control a finger from gliding slowly up and down the dripping slit of her core, "I will take a guess and I will not change the fate I decided for whoever it involves.
Elana arched her back off the mattress.
The movement caused the robe to split completely across her chest, fully revealing the supple, trembling curves of her breasts.
Azael's trousers tightened painfully.
He shifted his leg further beneath her thighs, lifting her legs entirely off the bed.
"I'm the one who escaped you," she moaned, her hips shifting forward involuntarily, her legs parting wider for his invading fingers. "I'm the one who deserves all the condemnation you've been threatening."
His temper flared at her stubborn protection of another and without warning, he sank a finger deep inside her.
"Mmmhmm," she twisted and cried out, her fingernails digging into his arm.
His thumb found the sensitive, swollen nub at her entrance, beginning to swirl around it in a slow, torturous circle.
"I decide who gets punished," he growled, lowering his face to her chest.
His voice was heavy, pushed to the absolute brink by the tiny, undone sounds she was making, and the warm friction pooling between her legs.
"Then please, master," she whined, her resistance shattering. "Punish me instead…so I don't have to try to escape anymore."
"Quiet, Elana," he ordered.
He closed his mouth around one tight nipple, his finger driving deeper inside her as his thumb picked up a relentless, swirling pace.
"Ah…" she moaned, her hips beginning to writhe. His finger began to stroke internally, hitting her deepest walls. "Please Azael…I want it…I want it inside."
Azael raised his head from her breast, savoring the pure lust all over her face and her tightly shut eyes.
His fingers accelerated and she began to thrash gently, her hips trembling as her drenched core clamped down hard around his finger.
"It's…it's not fair," she gasped, her instincts taking over as her hips thrust forward, desperately matching the rhythm of his hand.
He released his hold on her pinned wrist and immediately it flew to his shoulder, trying to push him away as the first violent waves of her climax began to take her.
The quiet, wet sound of sloshing filled the room as he maintained the brutal, perfect pace between her thighs, drowning out everything except her mounting cries.
She let out a short, breathless scream, both her hands now uselessly pushing against him.
Azael drove his finger deeper, lifting his leg higher beneath her thighs to pin her to the pleasure.
Finally, she buried her face into his chest, releasing a muffled, broken scream as her body convulsed.
He closed his eyes, thoroughly savoring the tight, rhythmic waves squeezing his finger.
He held her flush against him with the arm beneath her head, listening as she breathed softly, panting heavily in the aftermath.
Slowly, he retracted his wet fingers from her core and shifted his thigh back, letting her legs sink heavily onto the bed.
His eyes fell to her neck, lightly sheened in a light layer of sweat, framed by damp strands of hair.
His fangs throbbed with a dark, heavy ache, the next time he planned to fully take her and satisfy his hunger both internally and physically.